Dr. Annika Larsson - Asian Silk in Scandinavian Viking Age Graves

Asian Silk in Scandinavian
Viking Age Graves

Based on the boat- and chamber graves
in the Eastern Mälar Valley
by
Annika Larsson
Introduction
The exhibition Cosmopolitan Metropolis Along the Silk Road (2015-2016)1 began by show-
ing a fragment of genuine Tang silk, recovered from a Viking Age warrior grave at Birka in
the Eastern Mälar Valley, now shown to the general public for the first time. As early as
1938 the extensive textile material from the Birka Viking Age graves was published, but
not until September 2015 – nearly eighty years after the publication and almost one hun-
dred and fifty years after the finds were excavated – was this rare, thousand-year-old silk
from China (Fig. 1a), given its well-deserved prominent place in Scandinavian Viking Age
history.
In connection with the exhibition a seminar day was held, where it was possible to
present a comprehensive material of Asian silk found in the Viking Age boatgraves from
Valsgärde, just north of Gamla Uppsala in the Eastern Mälar Valley. The boatgraves at
Valsgärde were excavated in the first half of the twentieth century, but the results have
not yet been published. In the present article the Valsgärde silks are briefly presented, in
relation to the Birka material. In both Birka and Valsgärde silk tablet-woven bands with
woven patterns made by either drawn silver threads or silver lamella thread on a core of
silk, silver thread embroidery on silk fabric, as well as passementerie works of drawn silver
thread applied on silk, are found. The suggested place of origin of this material will be
discussed here together with the origin of silk woven in both samite and tabby techniques.
The conclusion is that the origin should primarily be sought in Central Asian areas. In
summary, the context of Asian silk found in Scandinavian Viking Age graves, is discussed.
History review – a survey

The Viking Age necropolis Birka consists of c. three thousand graves, c. a thousand of
which were archaeologically excavated in the last quarter of the nineteenth century under
the direction of Hjalmar Stolpe (1841–1905). Owing to a very rich content of metals from
1
Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, http://www.varldskulturmuseerna.se/en/exhibitions/previous-exhibitions/
cosmopolitan-metropolis-along-the-silk-road/
BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FAR EASTERN ANTIQUITIES 81 · 2020 · 107–148 107

ANNIKA LARSSON
weapons and fibulas, a fair amount of textiles was recovered. Metal salts have a conserving
effect on textiles, which are otherwise easily perishable. Graves containing weapons and
often a horse, as well, were interpreted as male warriors and horsemen burials, while graves
containing jewellery were considered women burials. Birka’s grave number Bj 944, where
the Chinese Tang silk mentioned above was found, was considered a male horseman´s grave
from the tenth century CE.
In 1938, the extensive textile material from the Birka Viking Age graves was published
by the illustrious textile historian Agnes Geijer (1898–1989), in a thesis that according to
the standards of the time was written in German. Weave-technical reconstruction sketch-
es and results from analyses of the fibres and colours of the finds are meticulously pre-
sented, in both text and illustrations. An entire chapter is devoted to imported silk fabric
from the East.2 The Tang silk in grave Bj 944 is awarded a special focus. The fragment was
found by the ear of the buried warrior and was interpreted as a remnant from his headgear.
Further finds of silk fragments were made in the grave, although these were woven in other
techniques.
Regrettably, the silk finds from far away were not given any special attention in Scandi-
navian archaeology. During the end of the nineteenth century Sweden was at the threshold
of industrialism. In this time of change, people sought stability in older traditions. The old
peasant society was seen as the original and genuine. Societies and movements for local folk
culture as well as for local national costumes and handicraft were established, all focussing
on ‘the good old days’ of self-sufficiency. The town dwellers could see ethnological and
archaeological objects from the nearby counties in museums located in spacious buildings
– emphasising the historical importance of the nation. A genuine Norse cultural heritage
was also exhibited on the large and important World Exhibitions in Europe,3 in contrast
to the collections from colonized parts of the world, shown by the colonial powers. The
general agreement was that the ancient gravefields in the Swedish countryside contained
farmers who worked the soil of the motherland, generation after generation. At the side of
every farming ancestor, a faithful housewife industriously worked in spinning and weaving
the clothing for the household, using home-grown wool and linen.
The finds of Asian silk clothing from the Viking Age burial rituals at Birka did not fit
into such a national romantic historiography, other than as a result of Viking plundering
raids or possibly from occasional trade with foreign cultures – activities said to have been
reserved for the sons who could not inherit the ancestral farm. The silk finds at Birka, and
from other similar central places in Scandinavia, were not seen as part of the unique Nor-
dic history. Following the end of World War II, English became the world lingua franca,
making previous scientific publications written in German – such as the dissertation on
the Birka textiles – less accessible to a new generation of researchers.
However, today, with the increasing financial importance of China on the global
market follows the West’s increased interest to show long-time Eurasian trade contacts.
2
Agnes Geijer, Birka III: Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1938), 58–67.
3
e.g. three rune stones from the Eastern Mälar Valley were sent to the World Exhibition in Paris 1867:
U 489 https://www.raa.se/runinskrifter/sri_uppland_b07_h03_text_1.pdf,
U 896 https://www.raa.se/runinskrifter/sri_uppland_b08_text_9.pdf and
U1011 https://www.raa.se/runinskrifter/sri_uppland_b09_h01_text_3.pdf
108 BMFEA 81 · 2020

known manuscript and therefore often referred to in the literature. In 1923
manuscript from the thirteenth century was found by Ahmed Zeki Velidi Togan at
museum in Mashad in Iran, the so called Mashad manuscript. There is also a short
version of the Ibn Fadlan story, edited by the Persian geographer Amin Razis in th
ASIAN SILK IN SCANDINAVIAN VIKING AGE GRAVES
sixteenth century.
Several I follow
Swedish museums havethe Swedish
lately realised thetranslation
importance of of
silkIbn Fadlan´s
and the extensiontext edited by St
Wikander
of the 1978,
old Silk which
Route foris said exchanges
cultural to mirror the Togan
between edition.
Scandinavia The Swedish
and the7eastern part of translation ca
Eurasia. The fact is that not all Viking Age silk originated in the Chinese area, even though 8
4
be followed word by word in an Arabic edition by Sami al-Dahhan.
the origin of the material as such should be sought there. In 1972 Geijer published her
last literary work, Ur Textilkonstens Historia (From the History of Textile Art), where she
The Tang
focused silk
on ain Birka problem concerning silk finds woven in a technique called
contradictory
samite (weft-faced compound twill), found in at least 50 graves in Birka:
The Chinese Tang silk in Birka is woven in an extremely fine and loose tabby weav
Since this kind of silk has been manufactured both in Persia and in the Byzantine area, it is
Seen against theto determine
difficult light, ifthe weave
this product is almost
may have come via the translucent,
Volga or Dnieper routeslike
/ … / a thin curtain or ve
despite theare fact that each square

that the centimetre of cloth contains 2000 threads. Th
So far, about 80,000 Arabic coins have been registered (in Sweden), while the Byzantine coins
remarkably few. Does this mean Norsemen instead received larger quantities of
introductory showcase
Byzantine in the museum exhibition presents the Tang find from the Birk
goods, i.e. silk?
5
grave In
Bjmy
944 as follows:
opinion, it seems unlikely that the silk would have come from another area than the
huge import of Islamic coins. On the whole, there are remarkably few archaeological finds
in Birka that can be attributed to Byzantium. In the following it is argued that the silk finds
One centime
in Birka tre similar
and in other of mate rial
Viking Age consists ofe.g.c.Valsgärde
burial sites, as 50 thre andads.
GamlaIn turn, each thread
Uppsala,
contains
should not20 be thin
seen assilk threads,
an isolated reeledseparated
phenomenon from from
the the silkworms´
Central Asiancocoons.
origin of Each weave
the coins. The collected impression of Scandinavian dress finds in Viking Age boat- and
6
has twograves
chamber thread directions,
show great similarities resulting in 2000
with dress customs finewarrior
of nomadic silk horsemen
threads per square
centimetre!
from the East, at least regarding the male costume and weaponry.
In the following, a written source by the Muslim traveller Ibn Fadlan is regularly
referred to. Ibn Fadlan was contemporary eyewitness to a boat burial among the Rus peo-
In addition,
ple, whichbetween each
took place along theweave thread,
eastern parts there
of the Volga Riveris inan922equally wide empty space. Thu
CE. The description
of the material grave culture of the Rus seems to be consistent with the archaeological
a single square centimetre of the material could have contained double the amount
remains of the Viking Age boatgraves in, among other Scandinavian sites, Valsgärde and
silk threads.
Gamla Uppsala in the Eastern Mälar Valley.
Careful
However, observation
no original manuscript ofshows
Ibn Fadlan darker areas
exists today. The in the gauze-like
so-called Yakut man- cloth. These a
uscript, set down in Arabic by Yaqut al-Hamawi (1179-1229), was the first known man-
floating silkand
uscript threads
thereforethat
oftenform tiny
referred to ingeometrical
the literature. Inpatterns againstfrom
1923 a manuscript thethealmost see-throug
background
thirteenthweave.
century wasThe weaving
found by Ahmed technique
Zeki Velidi Toganwas at a common
museum in Mashadduring the Han period, an
in Iran,
the so called Mashad manuscript. There is also a shorter version of the Ibn Fadlan story,
is generally known in the West as Han damask, since the patterned areas – similar to
edited by the Persian geographer Amin Razis in the sixteenth century. I follow the Swedish
“genuine” damask
translation weave
of Ibn Fadlan´s – edited
text shinebyagainst a more
Stig Wikander matte
1978, which background.
is said to mirror the During Tang, i.
the Birka
Toganperiod,
edition. The gauze-like tabby
Swedish translation cansilk in “Han”
be followed word bydamask technique
word in an Arabic edition was, through th
7
by Sami al-Dahhan.8
Silk route trade, a common object of an extensive silk export from China.9
The shine in the floating pattern areas was enhanced by the fact that th
silk threads had been reeled directly from the silkworms´ cocoons, without an
e.g. Cosmopolitan Metropolis along the Silk Road at The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm 2015
4
and The Swedish Silk Road to Persia at The Royal Armory Museum, Stockholm 2016.
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia (Helsingfors: Tidens förlag, 3rd Edition 1994 [1972]), 261.
5
See also Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare: Skifte i Skandinaviskt dräktskick kring år 1000 (Uppsala: Depart-
6
7 Stig Wikander, trans.,and

ment of Archaeology ed., Araber,
Ancient vikingar,
History, väringar
Opia 39, 2007). (Nyhamnsläge:
Summary in English. Svenska Humanistiska
7
Stig Wikander, trans., ed., Araber, vikingar, väringar (Nyhamnsläge: Svenska Humanistiska Förbundet 90,
Förbundet 90,18–20.
1978), 1978), 18–20.
8 Sami 8al-Dahhan,
Sami al-Dahhan,eded.,
.,‫ةلانسر‬
‫ﻀﻼ‬ ‫[ رﺳﺎﻟﺔ اﺑﻦ‬Risalat
‫نالضف ﻓنبا‬ [Risalat Ibn Ibn Fadlan]
Fadlan] (Damascus,
(Damascus, 1959), 150. 1959), 150.
https://ia903006.us.archive.org/26/items/lis_qd60/lis_qd6004.pdf
9 Morris Rossabi,
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· in When
109–148 109Gold: Central Asian a
Silk Was
Chinese Textiles, eds., James C. Y. Watt, and Anne E. Wardwell (New York: The Metropolitan Museum
1997), 7–19. 7.
ANNIKA LARSSON
The Tang silk in Birka

The Chinese Tang silk in Birka is woven in an extremely fine and loose tabby weave. Seen
against the light, the weave is almost translucent, like a thin curtain or veil, despite the fact
that each square centimetre of cloth contains 2000 threads. The introductory showcase in
the museum exhibition presents the Tang find from the Birka grave Bj 944 as follows:
One centimetre of material consists of c. 50 threads. In turn, each thread contains 20

thin silk threads, reeled from the silkworms´ cocoons. Each weave has two thread directions,
resulting in 2000 fine silk threads per square centimetre!
In addition, between each weave thread, there is an equally wide empty space. Thus, a
single square centimetre of the material could have contained double the amount of silk
threads.
Careful observation shows darker areas in the gauze-like cloth. These are floating silk
threads that form tiny geometrical patterns against the almost see-through background
weave. The weaving technique was common during the Han period, and is generally known
in the West as Han damask, since the patterned areas – similar to a ‘genuine’ damask weave
– shine against a more matte background. During Tang, i.e. the Birka period, gauze-like
tabby silk in ‘Han’ damask technique was, through the Silk route trade, a common ob-
ject of an extensive silk export from China.9
The shine in the floating pattern areas was enhanced by the fact that the silk threads
had been reeled directly from the silkworms´ cocoons, without any spinning. This means
that the pupa must be killed when it is still inside its cocoon, stopping the pupa to evolve
into a butterfly, who, on its way to freedom, would chew the cocoon’s kilometre-long shiny
threads into short fibres. In addition, to being extremely long and shiny, reeled cocoon
threads are very durable. Owing to their durability they are suitable for use as long warps
in the thinnest weaves imaginable. The patterns were made by lifting the warp threads –
so called warp-faced dominance.10
When the Birka fragment is enhanced in a microscope, it is possible to see its blue
colour (Fig. 1b). The threads in one of the thread directions have been dyed with indigo,
a dye that is more resistant over time than others. The colour of the threads in the other
direction – now brownish (in some places greenish of copper) – cannot be ascertained.11
If they were yellow, the combination with the blue threads would make the cloth shimmer
in green. If red, the fabric would have shimmered in purple. The tiny shining patterned
areas glittered in the floating thread’s own dye – blue, yellow or red – on each side of the
material, against the more matte background of green or purple. Thus, the thin material
was both very fine and very elegant when new.
9
Morris Rossabi, “The Silk Trade in China and Central Asia,” in When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and
Chinese Textiles, ed., James C. Y. Watt, and Anne E. Wardwell (New York: The Metropolitan Museum, 1997),
7–19 (7).
10
Elisabeth Strömberg, Agnes Geijer, and Marta Hoffmann, eds., Nordisk textilteknisk terminologi: Förindu-
striell vävnadsproduktion (Oslo: Tanum 1974 [1967]), 92f. Definitions in Swedish and synonyms in Danish,
Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish and in English, French and German. See “varpeffekt”.
11
Analysis made by Agnes Geijer, Birka III – Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern, 62, 184.
110 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Expensive gold threads were not used in early Chinese silk weaving. Instead, golden
ornaments were painted on the surface of the woven material.12 According to Vivi Sylwan,
who investigated grave silks from early Tang at the Small River in the Lop Desert, the Chi-
nese word ki ǝm means “gold cloth”. It is an old Chinese word for “metal, bronze or gold”,
today usually translated “brocade”. However, before the Tang dynasty had communications
with Western Asia, the Chinese did not use gold thread in their warp-dominated silk.
Instead, the objects were ornamented with “stuck-on gold-leaf”, as the warp threads can-
not, for technical reasons, be in metal. – I should like to translate the word kiǝm as guilded
cloth, Sylvan says.13
A microscope shows that the Birka fragment’s surface sometimes glitters from tiny lit-
tle remains of printed or painted gold ornamentation. However, there are no traces of gold
beneath a preserved lap seam. Thus, it seems likely that the gold ornamentation was not
applied on the cloth until after the object had been sewn.14 Instead, the seam has been cov-
ered by plait (trimmings) made from thin silver-wire threads in a fine passementerie work
(Fig. 1c), that has been sewn onto the material with long stitches. The stitching holes are
clearly visible in the dark seam, even without enhancement and without any background
lighting.
Not only from China

Within previous Viking Age costume research the fairly extensive presence of passemen-
terie trimmings made of thin silver-wire found in the Birka graves have been presumed to
represent a Byzantine court dress, supposedly worn by the Birka king’s courtiers.15 Nev-
ertheless, I am not completely convinced that a headgear in genuine Tang silk, found in
a pagan grave in Birka, would represent a symbolically charged courtier’s dress from the
Christian Byzantium.16
On the contrary, the Northern barbarians were at the time often seen as a threat to
the Christians from Byzantium. This is expressed not only in texts, for example The Nestor
Chronicle, but also by visualizing costume divergences between the Christian Byzantines
and the non-Christian Bulgars in contemporary art; e.g. in the Menologion of Basil II,
produced in Constantinopel c. 1000 CE (Fig. 2a). The actual scenario is said to take place
in 985 CE,17 most probably depicting a Byzantine confrontation with the non-Christian-
12
Li Wenying, “Textiles from the Second to Fifth Century Unearthed from Yingpan Cemetery,” in Central
Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages, ed., Regula Schorta (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung,
2006), 243–264 (262f).
13
Vivi Sylwan, Investigation of silk from Edsen-Gol and Lop-Nor and a survey of wool and vegetable materials
(Stockholm: Sino-Swedish Expedition, 1927–1933, Publication 32, VII. Archaeology, 1949), 172.
14
Agnes Geijer, Birka III – Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern, 62.
15
Inga Hägg, “Birkas Orientaliska praktplagg,” Fornvännen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research 78 (1983):
204–223. http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/2472/1983_204.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
16
Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare, 61–63, 72–77.
17
Elfride Knauer, “A Man’s Caftan and Leggings from the North Caucasus of the Eighth to Tenth Century:
A Genealogical Study,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 36, (2001): 141, Fig. 22.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Mans_Caftan_Leggings_from_Caucasus_8_to_10_C_
Intro_The_Metropolitan_Museum_Journal_v_36_2001; Menologion of Basil II, pl. Vat.gr.1613, fol.345
https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1613
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Volga-Bulgars – as the Bulgarians in Central Europe was officially Christianized already in

the ninth century. The costumes of the depicted pagans – through which the Byzantines
suffered martyrdom – consist of fur-lined hats and short coats with belts, but also swords.
The Christian symbolism of the Byzantines is enhanced by a nimbus. Costumes represent-
ing the religious Greek-orthodox traditionally reached down to the floor and consisted
of much flowing material (Fig. 2b). The depicted slick coats of the pagan perpetrators are
completely different, reminding of steppe-nomad Bulgar and Mongol costume traditions at
the time18.
One of the perpetrator’s coats is made from a plain material with clear button closures
(galloons) at the front. The other perpetrator’s coat is of a similar cut but is made from a
fabric patterned with flowers. The monochrome flowers are distributed as clear elements
on a plain background in an opposite colour. My theory is that the artist has depicted a
block-patterned reservage print (resist dyed pattern), a dyeing technique as common as
Han damask weaving in Chinese silk culture at the time. Several such fabrics were found
at the archaeological excavations made by Aurel Stein during his expeditions in the deserts
of Central Asia, India and China, in the beginning of the twentieth century.19
The patterns of Han damask are small and in tone with the colour of the background
material, while patterns made by resisting print remained un-dyed and would thus clearly
stand out against a distinctly dyed background. The first technique used dyed threads
during the weaving process, while the second dyed the already woven fabric. From a
weave-technical perspective the difference is not great; both techniques are based on a
plain tabby weave, a basic technique that, at least concerning silk culture, is connected
both with old Chinese and Indian silk culture.
From a Scandinavian point of view, it should be added that the depicted Bulgarian
coats are reminiscent of the costume finds in Birka’s warrior grave Bj 944. This is support-
ed not only by the finds of silk material but by seven bronze buttons found in the grave,20
as well as plaited works made from silver wire, possibly influenced by the “Orient,”21 and
the remnants of an “oriental” belt.22 The costume finds are also reminiscent of dress tradi-
tions described by the Arabic diplomat Ibn Fadlan, when he was an eyewitness to the buri-
al of a Rus chieftain during a visit to the Volga Bulgars in 921/922. Ibn Fadlan states that
the dead chieftain was dressed in a caftan, sewn of silk brocade of “roman character”,23
with gold buttons, for the funeral.24 When new, bronze gleams like gold. It is a well-known
18
Knauer, “A Man’s Caftan,” 139, 141.
19
Aurel Stein_1 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O87089/the-stein-collection-fragment-unknown/
Aurel Stein 2 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O96367/the-stein-collection-fragment-unknown/
20
Bj 944 http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/fid.asp?fid=434426
21
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 86, 276; Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare, 242.
22
Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, The Birka Warrior: The material culture of a martial society (Stockholm:
Institutionen för arkeologi och antikens kultur, 2006).
23
I suggest that “roman character” here should be understood as silk fabric woven in Post-Sasanian samite tech-
nique with typical Persian motifs, as parts of the Persian silk producing areas came under control of East-Rome.
24
Stig Wikander, trans., ed., Araber, vikingar, väringar, 67; Jørgen Bæk-Simonsen, “Ibn Fadlans beskrivelse af
Ruserne,” in Vikingerne ved Volga: Ibn Fadlans rejsebeskrivelse, trans., ed, Jørgen Bæk-Simonsen (Højbjerg:
Wormianum, 1981), 56; James E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and The Rūsiyyah,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic
Studies vol. 3 (2000): 1–25 (16). https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/jais/volume/docs/vol3/3_001-25_MONTGO-
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/jais/volume/docs/vol3/3_001-25_MONTGO1jun24a.pdf
112 BMFEA 81 · 2020

fact that dress buttons were not yet in use in the Scandinavian costume at the time.25
Ibn Fadlan also mentions that, for the funeral, the dead man was dressed in a hat made
from silk cloth with fur. The men depicted in Fig. 2a wear fur-lined hats; judging by the
pattern, at least the flowered hat is made from silk. Whether the Tang silk headgear in the
Birka grave Bj 944 was lined or edged with fur is uncertain, but the preserved seam close
to the dead man’s ear supports the idea that the hat was cut in a way similar to the hats
of the depicted pagans. When it comes to textile gifts of diplomatic character, Ibn Fadlan
states that the finest textile was produced in the silk-producing town of Mery in Central
Asia. In this context, he mentions five costumes of silk, one thin veil and another outfit of
golden brocade.26 As mentioned above, gold thread was at the time not used in traditional
Chinese silk but in brocade produced west of the Chinese areas.27
Silk from West Asia

The first silk that reached Western Asia was in the form of woven material. Silk from Chi-
na was transported along the caravan routes to the outposts of the country, where traders
from more western areas took charge of the goods for further transport and trade. Plinius
and Lucanus tell us, that at the beginning the women in the western territories unravelled
the loosely woven Chinese silk to weave new cloths from the shiny threads in their own
domestic tradition. The long-reeled warp threads were easy to unravel from the weave,
making it easy to also coil the even longer weft threads.28
Silk cultivation as such did not reach Western Asia until the sixth century CE. At the
beginning, the pupas were not killed before the silk was harvested, and the cocoon’s
threads were then shattered into large amounts of short fibres by the butterfly. These short
silk fibres were carded and spun according to the older wool traditions in the area. Thus,
reeled silk from the Chinese cultural areas clearly differed in the beginning from spun silk
produced in the western Asian areas. The western weaving traditions also differed from
the Chinese. West of China, weaving tradition originated in carpet production, where
colourful woolen weft threads were laid into wider and sparser warps – so called weft-faced
dominance29 – that originally were short and suited to the size of a carpet.
The looms in the area evolved so that the warp could be lifted up in sheds. It was no
longer necessary to insert the weft by hand, instead one could shuttle them back and forth
in the sheds using repeated weft patterns. Twill weave techniques became common. This
technique was further developed so that silk weavers began weaving with several warp
systems, aiming to have as many as possible of the silk’s shiny weft threads visible and en-
hanced on the face of the material (Fig. 3). The reverse side of the cloths were matte and
without any clear pattern. A typical weaving technique from this period, using double
25
James E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and The Rūsiyyah,” 16, ref no. 55.
26
Stig Wikander, trans., ed., Araber, vikingar, väringar, 44; Jørgen Bæk-Simonsen, trans., ed, Vikingerne ved
Volga: Ibn Fadlans rejsebeskrivelse, 40.
27
Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare, 202; Annika Larsson, “Vikingar begravda i kinesiskt siden,” Valör: Konstveten-
skapliga studier 3/4 Konstvetenskapliga institutionen, Uppsala universitet (2008): 33–43; Li Wenying,
“Textiles from the Second to Fifth Century Unearthed from Yingpan Cemetery,” 262f.
28
Agnes Geijer, and Vivi Sylwan, Siden och Brokader. Sidenväveriets och tygmönstrens utveckling: en översikt
(Stockholm: Bokförlaget Natur och Kultur, 1931), 13.
29
Strömberg et al, eds., Nordisk textilteknisk terminologi, 36, see “inslagseffekt.”
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ANNIKA LARSSON
warp systems, is called samite (weft-faced compound twill).30 It belongs to a group of silk
cloths that we could term ‘brocade’ and it was woven in a technologically very refined draw
loom, supposed to have developed in the Old Persia/Sassanian Empire. During the sixth
century the high-tech weaving art developed even more in post-Sassanid production in
the ancient Persian territories, while parts of the Persian silk producing areas came under
control of East-Rome (Byzantium), see also footnote 23.
The patterns and weaving techniques in post-Sassanid silk was a heritage from the
Sassanid silk art, present in the entire Persian culture area. The Sogdian province south-
east of the Caspian Sea was well known for silk production and silk trade. In this area the
post-Sassanid silk culture flourished and met the Chinese silk tradition at the country’s
outpost. Here we find the silk producing cities which Ibn Fadlan crossed on his way north
to the Volga Bulgar region, such as Samarkand, Bukhara and Mery. Further east – along the
silk routes in China – there were also several famous places for cultural meetings between
eastern and western silk culture, such as Dunhuang and Turfan.31
A Central Asian melting pot

The marketplaces along the Silk Road functioned as meeting places for goods and traders as
well as for artisans and artisan traditions from east and west, north and south. Both Vivi
Sylwan and John Becker point to the meeting between the weaving cultures of the differ-
ent areas that early on occurred at the outposts along the caravan trails. Sylwan studied
archaeological finds of silk and wool from Edsen-Gol (Inner Mongolia) and Lop-Nor (Xin-
jiang),32 while Becker has manufactured reconstructions of material from China, Central
Asia and Europe in a hand-weaving project at the School of Arts, Crafts and Design in Co-
penhagen.33 Both researchers show that the weaving techniques in the east and west were
dependent on the prerequisites of the materials as well as on the different types of tools
and their development. As an art historian, Agnes Geijer traced the development of the
designs and the meeting between patterns and technology in the different cultural areas.
She pays attention to that the symmetrical weft-faced motifs in Sassanian silk art, clearly
differed from the Chinese motifs. By lifting individual warp threads, figural motifs – sim-
ilar to those of brush-painted lacquer art – were created in the traditional Chinese silk. 34
However, influences of both Sogdian and Iranian as well as Turkish expressions in western
Chinese silk art, is highlighted by Mariachiara Gasparini in a study of the Turfan textile
collection in Berlin.35
30
The samite technique is defined as “inslagskypert med två varpar” in Strömberg et al, eds., Nordisk Textil-
teknisk Terminologi, 37.
31
Mariachiara Gasparini, “A Mathematic Expression of Art: Sino-Iranian and Uighur Textile Interactions and
the Turfan Textile Collection in Berlin,” The Journal of Transcultural Studies 5.1 (2014): 134–163.
https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/12313/8711
32
Vivi Sylwan, Investigation of silk from Edsen-Gol and Lop-Nor.
33
John Becker, Pattern and Loom: A practical study of the development of weaving techniques in China, Western
Asia and Europe (Copenhagen: Rhodos, 1987).
34
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 140, 148.
35
Mariachiara Gasparini, A Mathematic Expression of Art.
114 BMFEA 81 · 2020

In When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles, published by the Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with an exhibition with the same title, Watt and
Wardwell point to the fact that z-twisted warp was characteristic of weft-faced compound
twills (samite) in Iran and Byzantium, while lighter fabrics woven with untwisted warp oc-
cur in the same structure produced in China. Twisted and untwisted warps handle differ-
ently on the loom. The very different skills, of both the single weavers but also concerning
the type of weaving equipment, required different workshops. Silks with untwisted warp
threads were woven further east in Central Asia, where sericulture and silk weaving had
been learned from the Chinese and where Sogdian influence was strong. After the Arab
defeat of the Tang army in 751 CE, some of the captured Chinese silk workers and weavers
remained in Samarkand. A community of Chinese textile workers is also known to have
been resident in Bukhara in the eighth century.36
More and more, the Silk Roads appear as a cultural melting pot, while Birka’s direct
contacts with Byzantium and Constantinople seem increasingly doubtful. The Byzantines
themselves imported large amounts of silk from the Syrian areas, since their own produc-
tion was not sufficient for export.37 In addition, Birka’s contacts with Constantinople were
fairly limited since Kiev posed a hinder for free trade, at least from the mid-ninth century
up until the discontinuation of Birka in the second half of the tenth century. Trade along
the River Dniepr was at this time made difficult by the princes in Kiev, who both taxed and
demanded tributes on the goods. This is supported not only by the lack of Byzantine goods
in Birka, but by the Russian Nestor Chronicle describing the local situation in Russia during
the time of silk in Birka.38 From a Scandinavian point of view, the first Christian princess
Ingegerd of Sigtuna, in the Eastern Mälar Valley, married prince Jaroslav of Novgorod in
1019, but not until later they could settle in Kiev. At this point the necropolises in Birka
no longer existed, neither did the pre-Christian boatgrave traditions in Scandinavia. The
earlier presence of silk in the pre-Christian grave costumes at Viking Age Birka and other
similar places in the area must be seen in a wider perspective.
Funeral silk of the Viking Age culture area

Gravefields of a very special type from the Late Iron Age and the Viking Age are densely
located along the rivers of the Mälar Valley – the so-called boatgrave fields. The rivers
formed water links between the iron-rich areas in the Swedish north and the central water
systems of Lake Mälaren. In turn, Lake Mälaren was in direct contact with the Russian
rivers through the Baltic Sea. Sites such as Vendel, Valsgärde, Gamla Uppsala, Ulltuna and
Tuna i Alsike and Badelunda, are well known for their boatgraves. The Valsgärde boat-
grave field is the largest today known boatgrave field. It contains fifteen archaeologically
excavated boatgraves, of which ten are Viking Age and thus contemporary with the Birka
36
James C. Y. Watt, and Anne E. Wardwell, eds., When Silk Was Gold: Central Asian and Chinese Textiles (New
York: The Metropolitan Museum, 1997), 22. See also Hero Granger-Tailor, “Weft-Patterned Silks and Their
Braid: The remains of an Anglo-Saxon Dalmatic of c. 800?” in St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to
A.D. 1200, ed., Gerald Bonner et al. (Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1989), 303–327.
37
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 156–157.
38
Gabriella Oxenstierna, trans., Nestorskrönikan [Nestor Chronicle] (Stockholm: Kulturhistoriskt bibliotek,
Symposion, 1998).
BULLETIN
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ANNIKA LARSSON
chamber graves. The contents of the boatgraves are strongly reminiscent of the content of
the contemporary chamber graves in Birka. The greatest difference is seen already in the
name and consists of that the boatgrave custom buried the dead person in a genuine boat,
while the chamber grave custom buried the person in a chamber built from wood.
Owing to the rich presence of metallic salts, the Viking Age boat- and chamber graves
are rich in finds of textiles – particularly silk. An early example is the Viking Age boatgrave
from Oseberg in Norway, which contained large amounts of silk.39 Wood from the deck-
house construction, which functioned as an integrated grave chamber in the burial ship,
is dendrodated to the year 834 CE, indicating when the tree was cut down.40 The earliest
dating of the silk from the grave thus corresponds with the Viking silks in Eastern Scandi-
navian graves, which date from around mid-ninth century.
The collected impression of Scandinavian dress finds in the Viking Age boat- and
chamber graves show great similarities with dress customs of nomadic warrior horsemen
from the East, at least regarding the male costume and weaponry. The burial customs of
the Rus at Volga Bulgar, described by the envoy for the Caliph of Bagdad, Ibn Fadlan, are
almost identical. In 921/922 he travelled north to the Muslim Volga Bulgars with a large
delegation to assist financially to the building of a defence fortress against the Jewish
Khazars, who attacked from the south. The delegation brought large amounts of diplomatic
gifts, including silk, to ease the relationships with the people they met and stayed with on
the way. The delegation originated in the silk-producing city of Baghdad but also passed
Bukhara, a famous silk-producing city.
Near the Volga Bulgars lay a settlement for a people that Ibn Fadlan called al-Rūsiya
(the Rus). During their visit, the delegation had the occasion to eyewitness the burial of a
Rus chieftain. The grave was placed in a grave-boat, with a cover probably manufactured
from birch bark.41 Ibn Fadlan writes that the dead chieftain was first temporarily buried
for ten days, while the real funeral was prepared. Fine burial clothing was then manufac-
tured from silk brocade; including breeches, caftan and a hat. The resting place consisted
of a pallet covered with cushions and mattresses, made from silk brocade as well.42 When
buried, the Rus´ were dressed in dibadj, Ibn Fadlan says.43 The Arabic word used for bro-
cade quality (samite) is dibadj.44
39
Arne Emil Christensen, and Margareta Nockert, eds., Osebergsfunnet: bind IV, Tekstilene (Oslo: Kulturhis-
torisk museum, Universitetet i Oslo, 2006); Marianne Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings (Oxford: Oxbow books,
Ancient textiles series 15, 2014). It should be added that most of the silk cloth fragments in the Oseberg
grave, according to Vedeler, seems to be of Central Asian origin, see Vedeler “Silk”, 9–16, 18.
40
N. Bonde, and A. E. Christensen, “Dendrochronological dating of the Viking Age ship burials at Oseberg,
Gokstad and Tune, Norway,” Antiquity 67 (1993): 575–583 (581).
41
Karolina Pallin, “Vendeltida båtkapell: Textilt näverhantverk i Valsgärdes båtgravar” (Thesis for Bachelor of
Arts, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen, Uppsala universitet, 2016).
42
James E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and The Rūsiyyah,” 1–25; Stig Wikander, Araber, vikingar, väringar, 66–67.
43
Ture J. Arne, “‘Austr i Karusm’ och Särklandsnamnet,” Fornvännen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research
42 (1947): 290–305 (295). http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/5656/1947_290.pdf?sequence=1
44
Philip. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs: From the Earliest Times to the Present (Princeton University: Macmillan
Education Ltd., 1970), 345. https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheArabs-PhilipK.Hitti/page/n3/
https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheArabs-PhilipK.Hitti/page/n3/mode/2up p
116 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Nevertheless, silk “brocade” (dibadj) is equally prevalent also in Viking Age female
graves. Silk fabric, woven in samite technique, is mainly preserved within pairs of so-called
oval brooches (Fig. 5a) – so typical of a Scandinavian female grave costume at the time. The
brooches, in the shape of a three-dimensional oval bowl, have a small hole for a ring (Fig.
5b) into which a knife was fastened (Fig. 5e) – sometimes together with sewing accessories
such as scissors, needles and pincers. Samite remains from the clothing are often found
inside the female bowl-shaped fibulas (Fig. 5c), which seem to have been placed right on
the women´s breasts (Fig. 5d). To the attire, strands of beads and shiny metal pendants
belonged.
Bowl-shaped fibulas (oval brooches) still often containing textile fragments, e.g. silk
woven in samite technique (Fig. 5c), are prevalent in female boat- and chamber graves in
the entire Viking Age cultural area – from England in the west to Russia in the east but
are absent south. In 2006 a Viking Age costume including such fibulas, was found in a
female chamber grave in Russian Pskov. The costume from the tenth century contained,
in addition to the linen fabrics, only silk. Several patterned silk sections, woven in samite
technique, were used in one and the same piece of garment. The pattern of the dominant
fabric depicted the Persian king Bahram Gur on a hunting trip in 50 cm circles – a tradi-
tional mirrored pattern that continued to be woven for five hundred years in the Post-Sas-
sanid silk culture (Fig. 4a-c). A whole meter of this four-coloured samite was preserved in
a coherent piece, when the fragments were put together by the researchers.45 Distinctive
women’s graves containing patterned silk samite are common also in the Eastern Mälar Val-
ley; e.g. Boatgrave No. 36 in Gamla Uppsala and the female Boatgrave No. 75 from Tuna in
Badelunda, and the boat buried woman in Turinge (Fig. 6a-b).46 The bead strands in these
graves contained bronze pendants with post-Sassanid ornamentation (Fig. 6c-d) as well as
silver ‘coin’ pendants with the Muslim confession of clear Central Asian origin. The Arabic
inscriptions attribute the coin pendants to the areas of Wasit in Iraq and to Rayy near
Teheran in northern Iran, but also to the Arab-Sassanid Tabaristan.47
45
Elena S. Zubkova, Olga V. Orfinskaya, and Kirill A. Mikhailov, “Studies of the Textiles from the 2006 Ex-
cavation in Pskov,” in North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles X, ed., Eva Andersson Strand,
Margarita Gleba, Ulla Mannering, Cherine Munkholt, and Maj Ringgaard (Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow
Books, Ancient textiles series vol. 5, 2010), 291–298.
46
Anita Malmius, “Textilanalyser,” in Båtgravar i Gamla Uppsala: spår av en vikingatida högreståndsmiljö, ed.,
Else Nordahl, and Anita Malmius (Uppsala: Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Aun 29, 2001),
75–91 (75ff); Margareta Nockert, “Båtgrav 75: Textilierna,” in Tuna i Badelunda: Guld Kvinnor Båtar I, ed.,
E. Nylén, and B. Schönbäck (Västerås: Västerås kulturnämnds skriftserie 27, 1994), 112–117 (116); Marga-
reta Nockert, Textilrapport Årby, Turinge sn, Sörmland, Fornl 165. Oval Spännbuckla med textilrester: F60:
C. Rapport: P nr 5274/72 (unpublished), in the Swedish History Museum archive, Stockholm; Sten Tesch,
with contributions by Annika Larsson, Gunilla Larsson, and Michael Neiß, “A lost world? Religious identity
and practice during the introduction of Christianity in the Lake Mälaren region, Sweden,” in Dying Gods:
Religious beliefs in Northern and Eastern Europe in the time of Christianisation, ed., Ch. Ruhmann, and V.
Brieske (Hannover: Niedersächsischen Landesmuseum, Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung Band 5, 2015),
191–210.
47
E. Nylén, and B. Schönbäck, eds., “Båtgrav 75: Smyckena,” in Tuna i Badelunda: Guld, kvinnor och båtar I,
58–63. 60f; Else Nordahl, and Anita Malmius, eds., Båtgravar i Gamla Uppsala, 50f.
BULLETIN
BMFEA 81 · OF
2020
aves
ontainedcontained
bronzebronze
pendants pendants with post-Sassanid
with post-Sassanid ornamentation ornamentation
(Fig. 6c-d) (Fig. 6c-d)
as well as silver “coin” penda
aser silver
“coin”“coin”
pendants pendants
with thewith Muslim the confession
Muslim confession of clear Central of clear Asian Central Asian
origin. The Arabic inscriptions
he Arabic
abic inscriptions
inscriptions attributeattribute
the coin the coin pendants
pendants to the areas toof the areas
Wasit inand ofIraqWasit in Iraq
to Rayy near Teheran in n
ayy near Teheran in northern
ear Teheran in northern Iran, but also to the Iran, but also to the Arab-Sassanid
Arab-Sassanid Tabaristan. Tabaristan.
47
47
ANNIKA LARSSON Regrettably, no or
Regrettably, no original manuscript
egrettably, no original manuscript of Ibn Fadlan exists today. However, of Ibn Fadlan exists today. However,
the Swedish translation of th
dish translation
translation of the of actualthe partactual
Regrettably, noof partmanuscript
the
original of from
text theoftext Togan,
Ibn from
Fadlan Togan,
edited
exists today. edited
byHowever,
Stig the Swedish by Stig 48
Wikander in 1978, proposes t
er
978,in481978, 48
proposesproposes – atthat
translation
that –in
of the
least atactual
least partinofconnection
connection to the Rus´toburial
the text from Togan, the
editedRus´ burial
by Stig
ceremonies Wikander ceremonies
in 1978,48
proposes that – at least in connection to the Rus´ burial ceremonies that that Ibn Ibn Fadlan
Fadlan wit- witnessed in t
Fadlan
n witnessedwitnessed
in the in in
Volga
nessed the the Volga
Bulgar Bulgar
area
Volga Bulgar – “each
area –area –woman
“eachwoman “each had
had womana bowl
a bowl had
(hoqqa (hoqqa ‫ﺣﻘ‬a) bowl
//‫)ةقحﺔ‬ onher
on (hoqqa
herfemale
female breast (“tit”
her female
male breast(tadyiha
breast (“tit”) (“tit”) (tadyiha
breast (“tit”)/‫)ﺛدﯾﮭﺎ‬. In /the
(thadyiha ‫)ﺛ‬. In the
‫دﯾﮭﺎ‬bowl
/‫)اهيدث‬. In thethere bowl
bowl was there
there a ringwas
was a ring(halaqa a ring
(halaqa /were
‫)ﺣﻠﻘﺔ‬,
/‫ةقلح‬ (halaqa
) ,
a knife/‫ﺔ‬was
where a ‫)ﺣﻠﻘ‬, attached on t
knife
was attached on the breast 49 as well”. 49
49
Already in 1941, T. J. Arne referred to the German
was
nifeattached on the breast
was attached on theasbreast well”.asAlready well”. in 1941, T.in
Already J. Arne
1941, referred
T. beiden
J. Arne referred
translation of the Togan manuscript: “Jede ihrer Frauen hat auf den to theBrustenGerman eine translation of
nerman
translation of the
translation Togan
of the manuscript:
Togan “Jede
manuscript: ihrer Frauen
“Jede
Büchse (huqqa) aus Eisen, Silber, Kupfer öder Gold, nach Mäss und nach ihrer hat auf
Frauen den
beiden hat
Wert des auf
Brusten
Verinö-den eine Büchse (hu
n eine Büchse
Brusten (huqqa) (huqqa)
eine Büchse gens aus Eisen,
ihres Mannes aus Silber,
Eisen,
befestigt; Kupfer
bei Silber,
jeder öder
Kupfer
Büchse Gold,öder
befindet nachGold,
sich ein Mässnach
Ring und Wert
nach
(halqa), Mässdes
bei dem und
sich
Verinögens ihr
ein Messer ebenfalls auf der Brust befestigt befindet”.50 The readings seems to be in accor-
s Verinögens
ert des Verinögens ihres Mannes
danceihres
befestigt;
not onlyMannes
bei jeder
befestigt;grave
with the archaeological
Büchse
beifindsjeder befindet
Büchse
in Birka,
sich
documented befindet
Ring ein sich
(halqa),
by Hjalmar eindem sich ein
bei
Stolpe
ei dem
lqa), beisich
dem einsich
Messer
einthe
during ebenfalls
Messer auf der
ebenfalls
grave excavations (Fig. Brust
auf
5f), befestigt
butder Brust
also with thebefindet".
befestigt
Viking
50
The conditions
befindet".
readings
Age boatgrave seems Theto be in accor
50 in
ms to be in
s seems to accordance
be in accordance not only with
Scandinavia, e.g. in the Easternthe archaeological
Mälar Valley. grave finds in documented
In a new Englishnot editiononly
of Ibnwith Fadlan, the archaeological
frequently used within modern grave
Birka, finds in by Hjalma
Viking research,
ented
ocumentedby Hjalmar Stolpe
by Hjalmar
James during
Stolpeproposes
Montgomery the grave
during anothertheexcavations
grave excavations
interpretation, (Fig.
where “a 4f), but
small (Fig. also
with
disc” with4f), an but
the VikingalsoAge boatgrav
attached
ngViking
Age boatgrave conditions in Scandinavia, e.g. in the
knife was worn “around the neck”. Quoting a general description of aValley.
Age boatgrave conditions in Scandinavia, e.g. in the supposed Eastern Mälar Eastern everyday
Mälar
female costume tradition in Denmark51 seems to be misleading when dealing with formal
costume in funeral ceremonies of the Rus. Instead, the archaeological boat- and chamber In a new English
n a new English edition of Ibn Fadlan, frequently areused within modern Viking research,
former James Montg
In a new English edition
grave conditions in the ofEastern
Ibn MälarFadlan, Valley frequently
completely inused
accordance within with the modern
ch, James Montgomery readings,proposes
proposing that another
bowl-shaped interpretation,
oval brooches withwhere “a small
a ring where adisc”
knife was fastened,
with an attached knif
esearch, James Montgomery
were worn on the proposes
“tits” of the female another
ceremonial interpretation,
costume – as well as where
strands of “a small
beads and
n attached knife was worn52 “around the neck”. Quoting a general description of a supposed eve
ith an attachedsilver knifehangings.wasTheworn “around
interpretation theposition
of the fibula neck”. Quoting
is strengthened by Amina general
Razis,
a supposed everyday female costume tradition in Denmark
who says that bowls were tied on the women´s breasts, “so that they will
51
seems benot to
misleading
51 too big”. when dealing
get 53
ion of a supposed everyday female costume tradition in Denmark seems to
when dealing with formal
This hardly costume
reflects in funeral ceremonies of theInstead,
a neck position. Rus. the archaeological bo
eading when dealing with formal costume in funeral ceremonies of the Rus.
rchaeological boat- and chamber grave conditions in the Eastern Mälar Valley are completely in acco
the archaeological The boat-
silk in andViking Age Valsgärde
chamber grave conditions in the Eastern Mälar
mpletely in accordance with the former readings, proposing
The skeleton boatgraves in Valsgärde are all interpreted as male warrior that bowl-
shaped ovalThey
graves. brooches with a r
re completely
rooches with a ring in accordance
datewhere
to both a theknife with the
was fastened,
Merovingian former
Period and the readings,
were
VikingwornAge, but proposing
on only
thethe “tits” that
material from bowl-
the
of the female ceremonial costu
oval brooches with a ring
Merovingian where
Period has a knife
been was
published
ceremonial costume – as well as strands of beads and silver hangings
52 fastened,
previously. 54
Owingwere to worn
a large on the
amount “tits”
of metal
weapons, an unusual amount of textiles have been preserved in these graves – fromThe (Fig. 5a-c). the interpretation
male ceremonial
e interpretation ofcostume
the fibula –position
52
as wellisasstrengthened
strands of beads by Amin andRazis, silver hangings
c). The interpretation of the fibula position is strengthened by Amin Razis,
Stig Wikander, trans., ed., Araber, Vikingar, Väringar, 63.
48
For the Arabic words see Sami al-Dahhan, ed. [Risalat Ibn Fadlan], 150.
49
Ture J. Arne, “Ibn-Fadlans resa till Bulgar: en nyupptäckt handskrift,” Fornvännen: Journal of Swedish Anti-
50
the Lake Mälaren region, Sweden,”
quarian Research 36 (1941): 193–212 (208).
n region, Sweden,” in Dying Gods: Religious beliefs in Northern and Eastern Europe
http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/1293/1941_193.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=yin theof Christianisation, eds., Ch. Ruh
time
ation, eds.,
Mälaren Ch. Ruhmann
region, Sweden,”
51
Jamesand
E. in V. Brieske
Dying
Montgomery, “Ibn(Hannover:
Gods: Fadlan and The RNiedersächsischen
Religious ūbeliefs inref.
siyyah,” 5f, Northern Landesmuseum,
andRoesdahl,
no. 12, 19; Else Eastern Europe
Viking in the
Age Denmark Neue Studien zur S
Neue Studien zur Sachsenforschung
ristianisation, eds., Ch.
(London: British Museum, Band 5,
1982). 2015), 191–210.
Ruhmann and V. Brieske (Hannover: Niedersächsischen 47 E. Nylén and B. Schönbäck, eds.,
52
Annika Larsson, “Från dräkt till koppar och järn,” in Birka Nu: Pågående forskning om världsarvet Birka och
B. Schönbäck, eds., “Båtgrav
useum, Neue StudienHovgården, 75:ed.,
Smyckena,”
zur Sachsenforschung in Tuna
Bandi Badelunda:
Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson5, (Stockholm: Guld,
2015), 191–210. kvinnor ochbåtar
The National Historical I, 58–63.
Museum, Studies60f;
22, Else Nordahl and
;nElse Nordahl and Anita
and B. Schönbäck,53 2012), Malmius,
eds.,129–140
“Båtgrav eds.,
(132f);75: Båtgravar
Smyckena,”
E. Nylén, i Gamla Uppsala,
in Tuna
and B. Schönbäck, 50f.
i Badelunda:
eds., “Båtgrav fig 55.Stig
Guld,
75: Smyckena,” 48 Wikander,
kvinnor och trans., ed., Araber
r, trans., ed., Araber,
–63. 60f; Else Nordahl Vikingar, Väringar,
Stig Wikander, 63.
trans., ed., Araber, Vikingar, Väringar, 73.
and Anita Malmius, eds., Båtgravar i Gamla Uppsala, 50f. 49 For the Arabic words see Sami al
54
Greta Arwidsson, Die Gräberfunde von Valsgärde I: Valsgärde 6 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells boktryckeri
c words see Sami al-Dahhan, ed. [Risalat IbnDieFadlan],
63. 150. Arne, Ture J., “Ibn-Fadlans resa
50
ikander, trans., ed., Araber,
AB, 1942);Vikingar, Väringar,
Greta Arwidsson, Gräberfunde von Valsgärde II: Valsgärde 8 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells
“Ibn-Fadlans resa till boktryckeri
Bulgar: en nyupptäckt handskrift,” Fornvännen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian
Almqvist Research 36 (194
e Arabic words see Sami al-Dahhan, ed. [Risalat Ibn Fadlan], 150.
AB, 1954); Greta Arwidsson, Die Gräberfunde von Valsgärde III: Valsgärde 7 (Uppsala:
ian Research 36 (1941): 193–212. 208.
& Wiksells boktryckeri AB, 1977). http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/
Ture J., “Ibn-Fadlans resa till Bulgar: en nyupptäckt handskrift,” Fornvännen: Journal of
se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/1293/1941_193.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 51 James E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fad
ntiquarian Research 36 (1941): 193–212. 208.
ntgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and The Rūsiyyah,” 5f, ref. no. 12, 19. Roesdahl, Else. Viking
118 BMFEA 81 · 2020
Age Denmark. London: British museu
mla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/1293/1941_193.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
ndon: British museum, 1982. 52 Annika Larsson, “Från dräkt till
E. Montgomery, “Ibn Fadlan and The Rūsiyyah,” 5f, ref. no. 12, 19. Roesdahl, Else. Viking
on, “Från dräkt till koppar och järn,” in Birka Nu: Pågående forskning om världsarvet
Birka och Hovgården, ed., Charlotte H
ark. London: British museum, 1982.
en, ed., Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson (Stockholm: The National Historical Museum, Studies 22, 2012), 129–140. 132f.
a Larsson, “Från dräkt till koppar och järn,” in Birka Nu: Pågående forskning om världsarvet
earlier period mostly woolen fabrics, but no silk. As mentioned above, silk in Scandi-
navia first appeared around 850 CE. In a textile-archaeological research project at Uppsala
University, large amounts of Viking Age textile burial finds, mainly from the boatgraves
at Valsgärde and Gamla Uppsala gravefields, have been inventoried and analysed under
the leadership of the author.55 From the skeleton Viking Age boatgraves in Valsgärde over
2000 textile fragments have been inventoried – of which the absolutely majority is silk in
different textile techniques.
The largest amount of silk fragments is found in Valsgärde boatgrave number 10 and
is of the same type as the background weave in the Tang silk from the warrior grave Bj 944
in Birka. However, no finds have been made of floating threads from genuine Han damask,
described initially in this article, but similar background weaves of the same dimensions
as the Birka find exist in several places over the dead person´s body (Fig. 7a). The fabric is
woven in a sparse tabby weave from reeled cocoon threads. The threads in one direction
are blue, while the threads in the other direction today are brownish (Fig. 7b). From boat-
grave number 3 there are two straps in a similar quality, only about one and a half centi-
meters wide with folded outer edges of just about a millimeter or two (Fig. 8a). Thanks to
the natural glue of the silk (sericin) extremely narrow folds have been possible to make,
held in place without any stitches. The straps are cut from a larger piece of woven tabby of
untwisted reeled cocoon threads (Fig. 8b) and have not been mounted on other materials.
It seems likely that the thin gauze-like silks from Birka and Valsgärde have been produced
in the same area, at least within the same silk weaving tradition. I maintain that the fabric
should be linked to a silk production that has its closest connection in Chinese silk culture,
or from the neighboring areas.
In both the Valsgärde and the Gamla Uppsala boatgraves there are also silk ‘brocade’,
woven in different types of samite technique (dibadj). Valsgärde boatgrave number 15 has
the richest and most varied content, followed by Boatgrave 36 (a female grave) in Gamla
Uppsala. All but one samite quality in Valsgärde are woven by untwisted reeled cocoon
threads. Some fragments show not only distinct traces of patterns in different colours, but
also distinct traces of cutting (Fig. 9). In the female Boatgrave 36, one patterned samite
fragment is woven by z- spun threads from shorter fibers in the warp direction (Fig. 10a-c).
The actual garment was open in front of the body,56 an observation easy to make even for
an untrained eye due the folded front edges (Fig. 10b). In Valsgärde boatgrave number 15
there is another unique fragment woven by z-spun threads but sewn with stitches from un-
spun thread. This fragment is a tight woven monochrome taffeta tabby in blue, probably
dyed with indigo (Fig. 11).
Several different qualities of silk are often found in the same grave, sometimes sewn
together in one and the same object (Fig. 12a-b). As pointed out earlier, Birka’s warrior
grave Bj 944 also contains several different qualities of silk fabric. Further parallels
can be drawn between the grave costumes in Valsgärde 15 and Bj 944. As mentioned,
the graves contain several bronze buttons, six and seven respectively, placed at the centre
of the dead body (Fig. 13). Most likely, we are dealing with the same type of funeral cloth-
55
Project titel: Bucklor på behagen. Financed by Torsten Söderberg´s foundation; part I: 2012; part II: 2014.
56
Anita Malmius, “Textilanalyser,” 87, fig. 74.
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ing as Ibn Fadlan described when telling of the boat burial ceremony of the Eastern Volga
Rus in 922, namely a silk coat with gold-shining buttons.
In Birka as well as in Valsgärde, the silk costumes often contain fine tablet woven
bands made of silk, covered by tiny diagonal geometric patterns of silk on a surface of silver
thread at one side (Fig. 14a). The silk threads are reeled from the cocoon and used without
any spinning. Concerning the tablet woven bands in Valsgärde, there are two different
traditions of making the patterns – one tradition used lifted warp threads (Fig. 14b) while
the other tradition used soumak technique57, i.e. ‘sewn’ with an extra pattern thread in
the weft (Fig. 14c).58 A question is whether there may be a connection between the two
different tablet-weaving traditions, and the silk weaving warp-faced traditions and weft-
faced traditions respectively?
There is also a clear difference between the silver threads used in the tablet woven
bands found in Birka and in Valsgärde – in Birka drawn silver wire (Fig. 14d) is dominant,
in Valsgärde silver lamella thread is of clear dominance. Nevertheless, the patterns seem to
be of the same geometric characters. Future research will hopefully – by deeper technique
analysis – trace different workshop traditions or, maybe, a difference in date of production.
Worth noting, however, is that all the passementerie decorations are made of drawn silver
wire – not lamella – in Birka as well as Valsgärde (Fig. 1c, 15a-b). Even the most traditional
passementerie knots are attached to silk in some way (Fig. 15b, c).
The silver lamella thread is found also in an embroidered design of staircase patterns
made on the earlier mentioned veil-thin, gauze-like silk tabby in Valsgärde number 10
(Fig. 7c). From Valsgärde 15 and Valsgärde 12, there are two additional types of well-pre-
served silver embroidery sewn in couching (Fig. 16a-b) and pulled down couching (Fig.
17a-b) technique, respectively. The last-mentioned technique is expressed in an excellent
and well-preserved embroidery made on a piece of silk, used either as a jacket collar or
as a headgear. The embroidery is usually reproduced on a monochrome bottom. However,
a closer study indicates that the embroideries in both graves are made on silk woven in
samite by untwisted threads, once emphasizing different colours and beautiful patterns on
the fabric´s surface. The embroidery details are evolved by threads sewn in an outstanding
colour, made from reeled silk. In the archive documentation there are notes from analysis,
claiming that the silver lamella surface once has been gilded.
However, the boatgrave field at Valsgärde consists predominantly of cremation graves,
where the deceased were burnt on fire together with the grave gifts. In these graves, ashes
from textiles show burnt remnants from both silk samite and silver wire. Oval brooches
from a number of the cremation graves also indicate that not only men were buried at
the site.
New perspectives
Geijer’s interpretations from 1938 are still prevailing when it comes to Viking Age textiles.
Her knowledge about textiles and textile production in different parts of the world during
different historical times has been fundamental to textile history research, not only in
57
The soumak technique is defined as “Snärjväv” in Strömberg et al, eds., Nordisk Textilteknisk Terminologi, 77.
58
Karolina Pallin, “Återfunna skatter: Silverbroscherade brickvävda band från vikingatida båtgravar i Valsgärde”
(Thesis for Bachelor of Arts, Textilvetenskap, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen, Uppsala universitet, 2015).
120 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Sweden and Scandinavia but far beyond these limits. Concerning the textile material in
Viking Age Birka, Geijer´s first opinion was that the predominant silk material, i.e. samite,
found in the graves, originated from the Christian Byzantine area. As mentioned above,
she later modified this view and considered it difficult to determine whether the silk had
come to Scandinavia from the south, via the River Dniepr, or if the origin should be sought
further east, via the Volga River.59
In Hägg’s work from 1983 the Byzantine perspective was reinforced, through conclu-
sions that suggested that the passementerie works in silver and gold wire, as well as tab-
let-woven bands of silk with patterned surface of silver and gold thread, would represent
a costume tradition inspired by the Byzantine court environment.60 These interpretations
became, with a few exceptions,61 a scientific ‘truth’ which more or less has been left un-
touched – also in the case of silk of reeled threads woven in samite technique. However,
Hägg is on another interesting track, namely that archaeological textiles should not only
be interpreted from a technical perspective but also as a social representation – which can
be very difficult when trying to understand cultures that have long been dead, such as the
Viking Age culture. My ambition is here to, through the grave textiles, not only to review
the place of origin of the silk but also the representation perspective.
Let us, for a moment, focus on problems that arise when new research fails to replace
old interpretations, in this case of the Viking costume. In Birka there was a special fine
woolen fabric, woven in so called diamond twill technique. Geijer claimed that this prod-
uct was imported, probably from the Frisonian area (pallium fresonicum). Marta Hoffman
later argued that the product instead was likely to be produced in Syria,62 an interpreta-
tion that in the article Var järnålderns “frisiska kläde” tillverkat i Syrien? (Were the Iron
Age “Frisian Cloth” made in Syria?), although accepted by Geijer63 is yet debated within
textile history.64 Agnes Geijer, but primarily Margareta Nockert, has in several works pre-
sented the similarities between the costume of diamond twill from Birka and horseman
coats from the fifth century CE found in Egyptian Antinoë.65 66 The male coats from
59
60
Inga Hägg, “Birkas Orientaliska praktplagg,” 204–223.
61
e. g. Ture J. Arne, “‘Austr i Karusm’ och Särklandsnamnet,” 290–305; Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare;
Marianne Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings.
62
Martha Hoffmann, The warp-weighted Loom: Studies in the history and technology of an ancient implement
(Oslo, Bergen: Universitetsforlaget, 1964).
63
Agnes Geijer, “Var järnålderns ‘frisiska kläde’ tillverkat i Syrien? Reflexioner i anslutning till ett arbete om
tyngdvävstolen,” Fornvännen: Journal of Swedish Antiquarian Research 60 (1965): 112–132.
http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/1980/1965_112.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
64
Anne Stine Ingstad, “‘Frisiskt klede’ En diskusjon omkring noen fine tekstiler fra yngre Jernalder,” Viking.
Tidskrift for norrøn arkeologi 43 (1980): 81–95; Lise Bender-Jørgensen, Forhistoriske textiler i Skandinavien
(København: Nordiske fortidsminder, Ser. B. 9, 1986); Eva Andersson, The Common Thread. Textile produc-
tion during the late Iron Age – Viking Age (Lund: University of Lund, Institute of Archaeology, Report Series
no. 67, 1999), 40f.
65
Margareta Nockert, “Vid Sidenvägens ände. Textilier från Palmyra till Birka,” in Palmyra: Öknens drottning
(Stockholm: Medelhavsmuseet. Skrifter 11, 1988), 77–105; Eva Lundwall, Den ljusskygga textilkonsten:
Textilkonservering under 1900-talet (Stockholm: Riksantikvarieämbetet, 2003), 207.
66
Comparisons are also made between the Birka costume and a Byzantine coat, called Scaramangion. See e. g.
Inga Hägg, Kvinnodräkten i Birka: livplaggens rekonstruktion på grundval av det arkeologiska materialet (Mit
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Antinoë is said to be mirrored also in the remains of the five hundred-years later women’s
apparel found in Scandinavian Viking Age graves. The conclusion is drawn from fragments
of silk samite and woolen diamond twill in the female boatgrave number 75 from Tuna in
Badelunda in the Eastern Mälar Valley in Sweden, and it is based on comparisons with the
Birka fragments of samite fabrics cut in strips, which appear to have been used to decorate
garments sewn in diamond twill.67 In Birka, however, this phenomenon applies only to wom-
en’s costume. Diamond twill does not appear in men’s suit.68
By my own review of the rich silk material from the Viking Age boatgraves in Vals-
gärde, I was struck by the fact that also these graves (all male) are completely missing dia-
mond twill – a quality which instead is to be found at the site in the boatgraves from the
earlier Merovingian period. However, there is not a single trace of any silk from this early
period, neither any Viking Age silk applications sewn on non-silk material like for example
diamond twill wool. This contradictory relationship raises questions that put earlier inter-
pretations about the similarity between the Viking Age grave costume and the male coats
from Antinoë, at its peak.
Even more hasty conclusions have probably been drawn over the years. Geijer said,
for example, that there are no traces of cutting among any garment finds in Birka. How-
ever, there are Viking Age examples of cutting found in other contexts as for example the
cohesive piece of a total of 100 x 50 cm from a garment cut and sewn of samite found in
the above-mentioned chamber grave in Pskov.69 From boatgrave 36 in Gamla Uppsala there
are also silk remains of a presumed piece of clothing in total. This garment is considered,
by Anita Malmius, in a “unique” way to be composed of two layers of different kinds of
silk (twill and tabby).70 However, in closer studies, I have found that we are dealing with a
fabric consisting of two “layers” – so typical for the samite technique (Fig. 10a-b).71 Thus,
this quality is not unique but the most common prevailing quality among the Viking Age
silk, developed for the purpose of bringing forward beautiful motifs in different colours on
the upper side of the shiny fabric that we can call ‘brocade’ (dibadj).72 In Valsgärde there
are also whole pieces of garments preserved – e.g. the complete silver-embroidered collar
on silk samite (Fig. 17) probably belonging to a coat (or a hat). Cutting is also clearly visible
in Fig. 9.
In addition, Viking Age figurines, so called ‘Valkyries’, are now and then depicted
in clothing sewn of silk ‘brocade’. Thanks to the unequivocal pattern of pearl roundel
(Fig. 18a, b) we can identify the garment fabric as silk samite, which probably derived
einem zusammenfassung: Die Frauentracht in Birka: eine Rekonstruktion der Körperkleidungsstücke auf
Grund der archäologischen Funde), 99–100.
67
Margareta Nockert, “Båtgrav 75: Textilierna,” 116f. See also Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 275f.
68
Agnes Geijer, Birka III: Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern, 176ff.
69
Elena S. Zubkova, et al., “Studies of the Textiles from the 2006 Excavation in Pskov,” 291–298.
70
Anita Malmius, “Textilanalyser,” 80f (figs. 3a, 3b), 91.
71
Annika Larsson, “Silk Samite in the Viking Age female Boatgrave 36, Gamla Uppsala: A Textile Review,”
NESAT XIV 2020 (North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles) (University of Oulu, Aalto Uni-
versity & University of Helsinki University). Accepted for presentation. https://www.nesatxiv.org/schedule
72
In the museum of Gamla Uppsala, however, the actual silk from Boatgrave 36 is said to be ‘reconstructed’.
A ‘copy’ is shown to the public as a monochrome fabric.
122 BMFEA 81 · 2020

from Central Asian areas. The repeated circle motifs, in which the circles are built up of a
number of smaller dots, originated in Sassanid silk culture and remained in post-Sassanid
silks, woven in samite technique (dibadj) in damask looms. The silk patterns apparently
have been important when depicting the Viking figurines, which are considered to reflect
certain rituals within the Viking Age culture. To the pre-Christian Viking Age grave cos-
tume tradition also a large number of tablet-woven bands of silk and silver thread belonged,
a material that by Hägg was interpreted as of Byzantine symbol value.73 In the present Tur-
key, however, such historical costume details reflect the Muslim Era that – later – followed
the fall of the Christian Byzantium.74
Tablet-woven bands with geometric designs

Already in 1926, the Swedish textile historian Vivi Sylwan analyzed tablet woven bands as
cultural objects. She pointed out that the technique was well developed and widely spread
in the Nordic region already in the early third century CE. Indeed, findings of tablet-woven
woolen bands with geometric patterns occur in Scandinavia before the Viking era.75 In the
book Prehistoric Textiles, Elizabeth Barber shows that some of the earliest evidence for tab-
let weaving is found in the textile finds from Hallstadt in Central Europe, as early as the
fourth century BCE. Here a silk fabric, consisting of a tablet-woven border and patterned
with stripes of diamonds, meanders and swastikas, was found – produced from the fibres
of the genuine silkworm Bombyx mori, which only existed in China at the time. There is
also some clearly evidence for tablet-weaving in northeast Caucasus, in Kurgan graves from
the Nalchik area. Thus, Barber suggests that the early silk would have come from China to
Europe on the northern Silk Road – across Altai and the Ukraine – rather than via Xinjiang
and Syria, which was a later, southern caravan road stretching west from China. If so, the
tablet weaving seems to be of the same origin.76 In 1972, Agnes Geijer wrote:
Silk tablet woven bands with gold or silver effects are found in abundant amounts among the
finds in the Viking Age Birka – in no less than 60 graves, many times in several variants. / ...
/ Due to the overall uniformity and high quality, I have become increasingly convinced that
all these bands were imported from the Orient via the Russian trade routes, like many other
materials among these finds.77
The tablet-woven bands from Birka are available in more than 90 different variants.78
In addition, Geijer also mentions 92 items of lace-like work (passementerie) of drawn gold
and silver wire, found in the Birka graves. Similar objects are also found at Mammen, in
Denmark:79
73
Inga Hägg, Birkas Orientaliska praktplagg, 204–223.
74
Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare, 63, 351–356.
75
Margareta Nockert, The Högom Find and other Migration Period Textiles and Costumes in Scandinavia:
Högom Part II (University of Umeå: Department of Archaeology, Archaeology and Environment 9, 1991),
81–93.
76
Elisabeth Barber, Prehistoric Textiles (United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 1992), 203.
77
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 86.
78
Ibid., 276.
79
Ibid., 261.
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Of Oriental origin are also the artwork of gold and silver wire designs that are related to both
lace and embroidery – examples of which were found in Mammen and Valsgärde, but above
all in Birka /…/ the Mammen find, also contains other Oriental, probably Persian, costume
ornaments.80
I have recently suggested that the patterns of the “Silk tablet-woven bands with gold or
silver effects that are found in abundant amounts among the finds in the Viking Age Birka”,
may contain Muslim expressions in geometrical Kufi. In her dissertation, The Phenomenon
of The Square Kufic Script, Tehnyat Majeed maintains that a circular compositional square
sequence was extremely popular for Muslim inscriptions in early geometrical Kufi. The
script was preferred for expressing the names of Allah, Mohamed and Ali.81 In Matching
Islamic patterns in Kufic images, the authors show how to deal with Geometric Kufi as sym-
bolic “images,”82 which I claim would fit into the tablet-woven material from Birka as well
as Valsgärde. If so, this would indicate that the material neither represented a Christian
culture sphere (e.g. Byzantium) or a Jewish (e.g. Khazaria). Further research on this subject
will be published separately.
Epigraphic bands, so called tiraz, on many Islamic textiles confirmed loyalty to God
and to the caliph and marked the recipient with honor. The origin of the word tiraz is Per-
sian and it means ‘scripture’. Inscribed textiles were given as robes of honor to courtiers
and ambassadors in the khil´a ceremony, where they served as a symbol of individuals´
loyalty to the caliphate. Tiraz textiles with special qualities made them especially suited
for funerary purpose, and were often wrapped around the head of the deceased with the
text covering the eyes, which attest to the religious significance of these inscriptions.83
Referring to this phenomenon, the position of the tablet-woven bands B 5, B 7 and B 14 in
Birka’s grave Bj 845 and Bj 968 (Fig. 5f), respectively, is of particular interest. According
to the grave plans, made by Hjalmar Stolpe during the excavations, the bands were placed
right over the buried women’s forehead, and still, after being buried more than a thousand
years, the tablet-woven band B 14 almost covered the eyes of the deceased.84
In Bukhara, a silk tiraz workshop existed until the end of the eleventh century.85
A luxury production had also spread west to Europe, where inscriptions with Arabic writ-
ing (kufi) often were used as decoration.86 In the 1100–1200s, fine bands of silk patterned
with gold threads, tiraz, was manufactured in Palermo. The factory produced textiles for
the Norman royal palace during the time when pseudo-kufic textile patterns were modern
80
Ibid., 276.
81
Tehnyat Majeed, “The Phenomenon of the Square Kufic Script: the cases of Ilkhanid Isfahan and Bahri
Mamluk Cairo” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, 2006), 38ff. https://www.academia.edu/7851625/
Chapter_One_What_is_Square_Kufic_An_Historical_Survey_and_Analysis_of_the_Physical_Evidence
82
Damla Arifoglu, Emre Sahin, Hande Adiguzel, Pinar Duygulu, and Mehmet Kalpakli, “Matching Islamic
patterns in Kufic images,” Pattern Analysis and Applications vol. 18.3 (2015): 601–617.
83
Maryam Ekhtiar, and Julia Cohen, “Tiras: Inscribed Textiles from the Early Islamic Period,” in Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-)
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tira/hd_tira.htm (July 2015).
84
Agnes Geijer, Birka III: Die Textilfunde aus den Gräbern, 169.
85
Richard Frye, “Bukhara and Zandaniji,” in Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages,
ed., Regula Schorta (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006), 75–80 (78).
86
Agnes Geijer, Ur Textilkonstens Historia, 172.
124 BMFEA 81 · 2020

in Europe. The factory was under the leadership of Muslims and they used mainly Muslim
workers in the production, with traditions from the former Muslim rulers on the island.87
However, the very special tablet-woven silver bands in Mammen, Birka and Viking Age
Valsgärde are a couple of hundred years older than these epigraphic bands produced in
Europe. The diagonal geometric patterns – such as different types of swastikas – probably
originated in China and India, but were integrated into Persian and Central Asian design
along with signatures on coins, as well as symbolic decorations on, for example, building
walls on Muslim grave monuments. The symbolic patterns have survived in textile handi-
craft for long time, and remains can, as a result of cultural integration, still be seen in e.g.
the Russian folk art.
From Central Asia to Russia and Scandinavia

Geijer wrote that the unique Tang silk from the grave Bj 944 came to Scandinavia from
China via the eastern trade routes through Russia along the Volga River.88 At the time,
the largest production of both silks and silver was in the Central Asian areas, close to the
Chinese border. In this area there was also a long tradition of silk trade. Why would not
the rest of the silk material in this and other Viking Age graves, like the extensive material
of Central Asian coins, have gone the same way?
Ignoring some earlier interpretations about the origin of the silk, there is hardly any
archeological material in Birka which can be attributed to Constantinople and Byzantium.
Instead, thousands and thousands of Islamic coins in Sweden testify eastern cultural con-
tacts with the Caliphate. Most of the Islamic coins represent Abbasid and Samanid dy-
nasties from the Central Asian region. The latest coins found in the graves at Birka, dates
95589 or 966 CE.90 Shortly thereafter, the use of Birka as a burial place, ended.
Birka graves containing silk date from the mid-ninth century until the second half of
the tenth century. I find it likely that the Islamic coins, especially Samanid, can be traced
to the same origin as the silk origin, probably also to the same time for cultural exchange.
My hypothesis is that the large presence of Samanid coins in Scandinavia, represents trad-
ing interaction with Samanid centers for silk production in the ninth and tenth centuries.
Coins dated earlier may have been in circulation for a long time, as we do not know of any
silk finds in Scandinavia before the mid-ninth century. A German coin from the beginning
of the 1000´s indicates that the pre-Christian chamber funerals in Valsgärde probably last-
ed a couple of decades longer than in Birka, and that the cultural integrations with Central
Asia had come to an end.91
87
Vivi Sylwan, “Brickbandet som kulturobjekt: Några iakttagelser och deras resultat,” Fornvännen: Journal of
Swedish Antiquarian Research 21 (1926): 231–244 (240).
http://samla.raa.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/raa/800/1926_231.pdf?%20sequence=1&isAllowed=y
88
89
Christoph Kilger, “Myntfynd och den vikingatida silverhandeln,” in Myntningen i Sverige 995–1995, ed.,
Kenneth Jonsson, Ulf Nordlind, and Ian Wiséhn (Stockholm: Svenska numismatiska föreningen, 1995), 27–42
(32).
90
Arwidsson, Greta. “Die Münzen der Gräber von Birka.” Offprint Birka II:3. Systematische Analysen der
Gräberfunde (Stockholm: Kungl. vitterhets-, historie- och antikvitetsakademien, 1989), 139.
91
Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare, 351–356.
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There is an extensive documentation of Central Asian textile production and its de-
velopment. In Encyclopaedia Iranica research on silk production from Iranian areas is sum-
marized,92 and it’s compiled in Ars Islamica by R. B. Serjant. 93 Different fabrics in domestic
silk production, but also external trade, are among other economic aspects of Central Asia
presented by UNESCO in 1996.94 95 In Central Asian Textiles and Their Context in the Ear-
ly Middle Ages, Richard Frye writes about the Sogdians’ significant role as traders and their
spread of, in particular, precious textiles from Central Asian textile centers such as Mery,
Samarkand and Bukhara – to mention some of the more important places.96 The authors
all mention the common silk quality specified as dibadj, mostly translated into English
as ‘brocade’97 and produced in the area parallel to a production of thin gauze-like fabric,
gazz-weave. From the area silver embroidery and thin veils are mentioned as well, but also
production of tiraz. Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what the tiraz looked like. Ex-
travagant tiraz is said to be have been made of silk with golden inscriptions, produced in
specialized factories or workshops which belonged to the court. None of these expensive
tiraz has survived, but from the text sources we know that they often served as currency
or investments and were traded and sold.98
Samanid centers for silk production were found mainly in urban areas in Transoxania
and Khurasan. An interesting piece of information is that these centers also produced large
amounts of cotton in for example Samarkand and Bukhara, but the material seems not to
have reached the Scandinavian Vikings, although the Central Asian cotton should have
been widely known.99 During the ninth and tenth centuries the Central Asian trade, from
the centers of silk production to Western Asian and Eastern European trading centers,
increased. The Great Silk Road stretched from the area of the above-mentioned textile
centers, to northern China and Mongolia in the east and to the Levant area in the west.
Ibn Fadlan described also another important arm of the Silk Road, namely the caravan road
that stretched north to the Volga River. The same route continued south to the Khazar Em-
pire and to the city of Itil on the north coast of the Caspian Sea. Fine glasses100 and woolen
textiles, but, above all, silk and weapons were delivered to the Volga River area in exchange
for fur and skins, honey and wax as well as slaves. Several Volga Bulgar coins found in Birka,
imitate Samanid coins from the first part of the tenth century,101 which might widen our
understanding of trade with, among other items, Central Asian silk.
92
Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition, New York, 1996-. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abrisam-silk-index
93
R. B. Serjant, “Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest,” Ars Islamica vol. 9
(1942): 54–92.
94
M. S. Asimov, and C. E. Bosworth, eds., History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. IV, The age of achieve-
ment: A.D. 750 to the end of the fifteenth century (Paris: UNESCO Publishing: Multiple History Series, 1998).
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001116/111664eo.pdf
95
N. N. Negmatov, “The Samanid State,” in History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. IV, The age of achieve-
ment: A.D. 750 to the end of the fifteenth century, ed., M. S. Asimov, and C. E. Bosworth (Paris: UNESCO
Publishing: Multiple History Series, 1998), 83–101.
96
Richard Frye, “Bukhara and Zandaniji,” 75–80.
97
See also Philip. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 245.
98
Maryam Ekhtiar, and Julia Cohen, “Tiras: Inscribed Textiles from the Early Islamic Period”.
99
N. N. Negmatov, “The Samanid State,” 90.
100
The Swedish History Museum http://historiska.se/upptack-historien/object/106816-karl-bagare-av-glas/#group-1
101
Greta Arwidsson, “Die Münzen der Gräber von Birka,” 140.
126 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Throughout the ninth and tenth century, large amounts of Samanid coins and Samanid
luxury goods, through the Rus´ area, reached all the way to the Baltic Sea in the west, but
also further to the Scandinavian neighbors. The Silk Road cargoes were both big and small,
and the caravans stayed at special trading stations along the way. The Caliph al-Muqtadir
(908–932 CE) sent the largest known caravan load – 3000 pack animals escorted by 5000
men. They had all the necessary services, including military protection, but also artists and
craftsmen as well as raw materials for both industry and handicrafts. Within the produc-
tion, both free and slaves worked.102 The delegation of Ibn Fadlan, which went north to the
Turkish Volga Bulgars from Baghdad via Mery, Bukhara and Khwarezm east of the Caspian
Sea to Bulgar, situated at the river Volga about 30 km downstream from its confluence
with the Kama River, is said to have brought thousands of Dinars as well as silk fabrics and
clothing in finest gold brocade – dibadj103 – but also Muslim costumes of honor and elegant
veils made of silk.104 It is not impossible that similar loads, mainly through the Russian
rivers, also made their way to Scandinavia.
Summary – Silk Culture in Viking Age Scandinavia

Silk in the pre-Christian context is rarely noted in Scandinavian archeology. Remaining
fragments are tiny and the design expressions almost invisible. Thus, silk from Viking Age
Scandinavia are difficult to interpret for an untrained eye. Silk cultivation and silk produc-
tion did not exist in Europe at this time. The material was produced in Asia, and primarily
associated with rich graves in central Scandinavian settlements close to waterways. Both
the necropolis at Birka and Valsgärde boatgrave field in the Eastern Mälar Valley, are good
examples. However, silk must have been relatively common in the Viking Age Scandina-
via, as there are often traces of silk not only in warrior´s graves but also often in the oval
brooches in female graves. The brooches are so common that even smaller Scandinavian
museums often have them in their Viking Age collections. When textile remains still can
be found inside the fibulas, small fragments of patterned samite woven from untwisted silk
threads in different colours are not uncommon findings (Fig. 6b).
Viking Age silks in Scandinavian contexts are only found in graves. Most of the silks
from the Viking Age boatgraves in Valsgärde, not far from Gamla Uppsala in the Eastern
Mälar Valley, are loosely woven by untwisted reeled silk threads, which give the fabrics
a light and thin quality. This is characteristic for almost all fabrics that remain, woven
in tabby as well as in samite techniques, indicating a Central Asian origin. A genuine
Han-damask fragment with remains of gold painting, found in the horseman´s grave Bj 944
in Birka, rather confirms that Chinese silk was part of the Silk Route long-distance trade
westwards to Eastern Central Scandinavia, which emerged from the cultural melting pot
in Central Asia. Z-spun threads are at firsthand connected to the Middle East and Byzan-
tine areas. So far, only one silk fragment made of spun threads has been found in Valsgärde.
In Gamla Uppsala, one additional fragment is found. I propose that these two exceptions
probably came to Scandinavia through the Central Asian crossroads as well.
102
N. N. Negmatov, “The Samanid State,” 91.
103
Ture J. Arne, “‘Austr i Karusm’ och Särklandsnamnet,” 295.
104
Stig Wikander, Araber, Vikingar, Väringar, 44f.
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The open gauze-like silk fabrics in Birka and Valsgärde are almost the same, woven
with the same blue colour in one of the thread directions, although in the Valsgärde fabric
no floating pattern threads can be seen as in the genuine Han damask fabric from Birka. In-
stead, the Valsgärde fabric is covered by sparse embroidery made of silver lamella threads,
attached by couching stitches on the loosely woven tabby. Worth noting, is that all silver
thread decorations that occur in Valsgärde, including embroidery and tablet woven bands,
only occur on silk material. Even the spun silver lamella threads have a core of silk. This is
not an old Scandinavian tradition – already in Exodus in the Old Testament it is described
how lamella thread was made out of hammered gold foil for use in the clergy’s ceremonial
clothing in the Middle East.105 Concerning the Eastern Scandinavian finds of lamella from
the Viking Age, the material seems to only have been used for embroidery on silk and silk
tablet-weaving.
There is no evidence in the graves for any gold or silver threads woven into silk cloth.
When comparing to the “golden brocade” mentioned in Central Asian context by the Mus-
lim traveler Ibn Fadlan in the beginning of the tenth century, it is hard to know whether he
actually refers to silk fabric with gold threads in the weft or to golden decorations made ei-
ther by painted “gold-leaves”, golden embroidery, passementerie applications or tablet-wo-
ven bands from guilded silver threads. The similarity to Chinese silk culture, as well as the
lack of gold threads in brocades woven in samite technique found in Scandinavia, indicate
that he likely refers to silk brocade (dibadj) decorated with gold ornaments.
The present article has interpreted silk from Viking Age burial costumes not only as
a result of plunder. It is rather a material expression of greater values, shared throughout
the Viking cultural area where the Rus should have been greatly influenced by trade with
Samanid and Sogdian merchants. My interpretation is that most of the silks in both Birka
and Valsgärde necropolis sites, originated from urban silk producing centers such as Bukha-
ra and Mery, situated in Central Asian areas near the eastern border to China, between the
mid-ninth and the late tenth century CE. From the same date and the same cultural area
originate large amounts of Samanid coins in the Viking Age Scandinavia.
An important piece in the puzzle will be the geometric expressions in the tablet-
woven bands of silk and silver (sometimes gold) belonging to the Viking Age grave cos-
tumes, which could strengthen the argument for the Muslim parts of Central Asia as the
area of production. I find it quite remarkable that traditional maps showing the Viking
world do not include the Central Asian areas, often not even the Caspian Sea.106 It is high
time for a paradigm shift in Viking textile studies, where textile material should not be
separated from archeological knowledge and where cultural contexts in Central Asia also
should be added into the archeological Viking Age research.
In my thesis – Klädd krigare; Skifte i skandinaviskt dräktskick kring år 1000 (Warriors
clothing; Shift in Scandinavian Costume in the vicinity of year 1000) – it was conclud-
ed that the Scandinavian trade routes to the Oriental East changed after the use of the
necropolis at Birka ended – from getting cultural influences from the Caliphate through
trade along the River Volga, to trade and cultural exchange with the Christian Byzantine
105
The 2nd Book of Moses, 39:3: “And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it
in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, the work of the skillful workman.”
106
e.g. S. Brink, and N. Price, eds., The Viking World (London: Routledge, 2008), xxiii.
128 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Empire and Constantinople via the River Dniepr after the year 1000 CE107 – an interpreta-
tion that Ture J. Arne made already in 1947, in an article dealing with Scandinavian Viking
Age cultural contacts eastwards. His result was based on Swedish runic inscriptions from
the eleventh century.
– Interpretations, claiming Byzantine silk in Scandinavia during the Birka Era are not
correct, Arne says. Byzantine silk import to Eastern Scandinavia is of slightly later date
than the North Persian import of silk to Birka.108 Based on the extensive material of hith-
erto unpublished silk fragments from Viking Age boatgraves in Valsgärde and Gamla (Old)
Uppsala, which in my ongoing research are analyzed and compared with the silk finds from
the necropolis in Birka, the same conclusions can be drawn and strengthened.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend a great thank you to Torsten Söderbergs Foundation, which, through
financial contribution, has made my textile analyzes of the finds from the Valsgärde boat-
graves possible. I would also like to thank Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and Estrid Ericson
Foundation, which both have supported my continued work in placing the material in a
relevant context. Further, the Swedish Institute and Mårten Frankby, Consul at the Swed-
ish General council in St. Petersburg have made comparison studies on site, from west to
east in European Russia, possible. During the journey in Russia the results were present-
ed at the International Silk Road Seminar held in Kislovodsk in the North Caucasus in
September 2019, a joint arrangement between the University of Stavropol and the China
Silk Museum.
My warmest thanks go however to my Arab research colleague Mohamed Guennoun in
Rabat, Morocco, who in ongoing collaboration contributes with relevant literature regard-
ing Eastern cultural areas. Mohamed does not only translate from Arabic into English, but
also teach me a great deal about Islamic cultural history. Together we are at the moment
working on a book that follows up on this article.
107
Annika Larsson, Klädd krigare.
108
Ture J. Arne, “‘Austr i Karusm’ och Särklandsnamnet,” 295.
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a)
b)
c)
Figure 1. a) Tang-silk woven in “Han damask” found in horseman´s grave Bj 944 in Viking Age Birka,
tenth century (photo © Annika Larsson). b) The threads in one direction of the fragment are still blue.
Reeled, untwisted silk fibers were used (microscope photo © Annika Larsson). c) The seam was covered
by passementerie lace-work made of silver wire (after Agnes Geijer 1938: Taf. 29: 1–2).
130 BMFEA 81 · 2020

a).
b)
Figure 2. a) Bulgarians attack Byzantine Christians 985 CE at a wind of the River Volga. Drawing
after the original Vat.gr.1613, fol.345 (drawing Vera Olsson © Vera Olsson and Annika Larsson).
b) Preserved wall painting depicting Byzantine silk costumes. Chora church, Istanbul
(photo © Annika Larsson).
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Figure 3. Viking Age silk fabric woven in samite technique found in horseman´s grave Bj 944 in Viking
Age Birka, tenth century. Long, shiny weft threads were enhanced and visualised on the face side of
the fabrics. This is a typical tenth century silk find in the Birka chamber graves (microscope photo
© Annika Larsson).
a) b) c)
Figure 4
a) Silk samite with motif of the Persian king Bahram Gur on a hunting trip in 50 cm circles.
From a Viking Age woman´s grave costume in Russian Pskov, tenth century
(drawing Vera Olsson © Vera Olsson and Annika Larsson).
b) In technologically developed looms, the detailed circular patterns were repeated
c) The remains from the grave costume consisted of a whole meter of the silk samite fabric
132 BMFEA 81 · 2020

a)
b).
f) Figure 5.
a) A pair of female bowl-shaped fibulas, so called
oval brooches, Viking Age. In the arch-
aeological collections, Uppsala University
b) In the bowl-shaped fibulas there was a ring,
were a knife was fastened. Boatgrave 36,
Gamla Uppsala, c. 900 CE. (photo Mikael
Wallerstedt © Mikael Wallerstedt
and Annika Larsson).
c) Textile remains from the clothing are often
preserved inside the fibulas. Here, linen tabby
and silk samite. Boatgrav 36, Gamla Uppsala,
c. 900 CE. (photo Mikael Wallerstedt ©
Mikael Wallerstedt and Annika Larsson).
d) The green colour on the upper arm bone show
the position of the oval brooches on the dead
woman´s breasts. Boatgrave 36, Gamla Uppsala,
c. 900 CE (photo © Annika Larsson).
e) The knife from Boatgrave 36, Gamla
Uppsala. A bronze ring was still in position
at the excavation, c. 900 CE (photo ©
Annika Larsson).
f) Grave Bj 968 in Birka. Plan by Hjalmar
Stolpe. A pair of oval brooches, where the knife
and scissors were fastened, were in breast
position. Tablet-woven bands covered the
dead woman´s face (after Agnes Geijer 1938:
Taf. 40:5).
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c) d)
e)
a) D.
Figure 6.
a) From the excavation of the Viking Age
female boatgrave in Turinge, Eastern Mälar
Valley, a pair of oval brooches as well as
five metal pendants in the bead strands,
are visible (photo courtesy Sten Tesch).
b) Silk samite remains in the fibulas b).
from the Turinge boatgrave, show
colourful woven patterns. Blue, yellow c) d)
and red threads from untwisted reeled
fibers are visible (microscope photo ©
Annika Larsson).
c) A necklace pendant with Post-Sassanian
ornaments from the Viking Age boatgrave
in Turinge (photo © Annika Larsson).
d) A necklace pendant with Post-Sassanian
ornaments from the Viking Age boatgrave
in Turinge (photo © Annika Larsson).
134 BMFEA 81 · 2020

a) c)
Figure 7. a) Valsgärde boatgrave number 10.

Male grave from the tenth century.
Remains of veil-thin tabby woven from untwisted,
reeled silk threads covered the body of the deceased
b) The veil-thin tabby has been produced with blue
threads in one direction (microscope
photo © Annika Larsson).
c) Embroidered staircase patterns made of silver-
lamella thread covered the veil-thin tabby
(microscope photo © Annika Larsson).
b)
b)
Figure 8. a) Silk straps, only about one and a half

centimeters wide. Male boatgrave, Valsgärde number
3, tenth century. Thanks to the natural glue of the
silk extremely narrow folds have been possible
to make, held in place without any stitches
b) The straps are cut from a larger piece of gauze-
like woven tabby, made of untwisted, reeled cocoon
a) threads (microscope photo © Annika Larsson).
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Figure 9. Silk samite in Valsgärde boatgrave number 11 show not only distinct traces of patterns in differ-
ent colours, but also distinct traces of cutting, tenth century (photo © Annika Larsson).
a) b)
Figure 10. a) Female boatgrave 36, Gamla Upp-

sala, c. 900 CE. Face side of a piece of silk samite,
woven in at least two colours (photo © Annika
Larsson).
b) Reverse side of the same samite fragment.
Note the cut and folded edge, indicating that
the garment was open in the front of the body
c) The fabric is woven by z-spun threads from
shorter fibers in the warp direction, but still
shiny, un-twisted threads are used in the weft
c)
136 BMFEA 81 · 2020

Figure 11. Unique silk taffeta fragment in Vals-

gärde boatgrave number 15. Woven by z-spun
threads and sewn with stitches from un-spun
thread, indigo blue, tenth century (photo © An-
nika Larsson).
a)
Figure 12. a) Several qualities of silk are

often sewn together in the Valsgärde boatgraves,
tenth century. Patterned silk samite, bordered
with tabby weave and then embroidered with
staircase patterns of silver lamella thread,
Valsgärde 10 (photo © Annika Larsson).
b) Tablet-woven band sewn into samite fabric,
Valsgärde 15 (microscope photo ©
Annika Larsson).
b)
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Figure 13. Two, of in total

six, bronze-buttons placed on
the front of the male body in
Valsgärde boatgrave number 15
a)
Figure 14. a) Tablet-woven bands made

of silk and silver thread. From male
boatgraves in Valsgärde, tenth century.
s
The tablet-woven bands in Valsgärde
15, are sewn into silk samite fabrics.
Most of the silver threads that cover
the surface consist of lamella type
b) Some of the patterns of the tablet-
woven bands from Valsgärde are made
by lifted warp threads. Valsgärde 15
(microscope photo courtesy Karolina c)
Pallin).
c) Other tablet woven bands from
Valsgärde are made in a kind of soumak
technique, where an extra weft thread
is used. Valsgärde 15 (microscope photo
courtesy Karolina Pallin).
d) In Valsgärde 3, the silver thread in
the tablet woven bands are drawn
(microscope photo © Annika Larsson). b)
138 BMFEA 81 · 2020

d)
s
Figure 15.
a) Passementerie pendants
and knots, from the male
boatgraves 12 and 15 in
Valsgärde, are made of drawn
silver wire. Tenth century
b) The most traditional passe-
menterie knots still often sur-
round some kind of organic
remains (photo © Annika
Larsson).
c) The microscope studies of
15b show the organic remains
of silk samite (microscope
photo © Annika Larsson).
s
a)
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b) c)
s
a)
Figure 16.
a) Silver embroidery on silk-
samite in Valsgärde boatgrave
number 12. Both silver lamella
thread and drawn silver wire
is used, tenth century (photo
© Teddy Törnlund and Uppsala
University).
b) Details of the silver lamella
embroidery sewn in couching
technique (microscope photo
© Annika Larsson).
b)
140 BMFEA 81 · 2020

a)
b)
Figure 17.
a) The silver lamella embroidered collar on silk samite in Valsgärde boatgrave number 15, tenth
century (photo © Teddy Törnlund and Uppsala University).
b) Details of the silver lamella embroidery sewn in pulled down couching technique. The embroidery
is enhanced with reeled silk threads, dyed in an outstanding colour
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Figure 18. a) Visualization is an

important part of the textile
research process. By recreating
the splendor of the Central Asian
silk fabrics in screen print, new
knowledge also can be mediated
(drawing Vera Olsson © Vera
Olsson and Annika Larsson).
b) Small Viking Age figurines (Valkyries)

of metal are sometimes depicted in clothing,
sewn in silk from clear Central Asian areas.
Pearl roundel motifs are typical for Post-
Sassanian silk. Find from Nygaard,
Bornholm in Denmark. Here, the original
gilding of the pearl roundel dots is reinforced by
the author (object number C32009,
the National Museum in Denmark.
Photo Roberto Fortuna and Kira Ursem,
CC-BY-SA).
https://samlinger.natmus.dk/DO/asset/2378
142 BMFEA 81 · 2020

sixteenth century. I follow the Swedish translation of Ibn Fadlan´s text edited by
Wikander 1978, which is said to mirror the Togan edition.7 The Swedish translation
be followed word by word in an Arabic edition by Sami al-Dahhan.8
The Tang silk in Birka

The Chinese Tang silk in Birka Bibliography
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Dr. Annika Larsson - Asian Silk in Scandinavian Viking Age Graves

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Asian Silk in Scandinavian

Viking Age Graves

History review – a survey

BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF FAR EASTERN ANTIQUITIES 81 · 2020 · 107–148 107

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despite theare fact that each square

7 Stig Wikander, trans.,and

The Tang silk in Birka

One centimetre of material consists of c. 50 threads. In turn, each thread contains 20

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Not only from China

Volga-Bulgars – as the Bulgarians in Central Europe was officially Christianized already in

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Silk from West Asia

A Central Asian melting pot

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Funeral silk of the Viking Age culture area

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Tablet-woven bands with geometric designs

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From Central Asia to Russia and Scandinavia

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Summary – Silk Culture in Viking Age Scandinavia

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Figure 7. a) Valsgärde boatgrave number 10.

Figure 8. a) Silk straps, only about one and a half

Figure 10. a) Female boatgrave 36, Gamla Upp-

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Figure 11. Unique silk taffeta fragment in Vals-

Figure 12. a) Several qualities of silk are

Figure 13. Two, of in total

Figure 14. a) Tablet-woven bands made

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Figure 18. a) Visualization is an

b) Small Viking Age figurines (Valkyries)

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The Tang silk in Birka

5.1 (2014): 134–163. https://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/

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världsarvet Birka och Hovgården. Edited by Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson.

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Online resources: Accessed 2020-05-06

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